"Kirlian photography" or the photographic recording of "coronal" images is an area of questionable research carried on for more than 50 years mostly by persons with little education or training in the disciplines of engineering and physical science.
Recently, data collected in India with a Kirlian apparatus, by Ramesh Chouhan has suggested a relationship between percent transmission figures as measured by densitometer readings and the presence and progress of a variety of carcinomas. His unique discovery, is that this correlation appears when the percent transmission variable is measured as a function of time after the skin surface is washed. Thus a new dimension has been added to a procedure previously of doubtful value.
The equipment used to collect this data, however, was unwieldy and not suited to research into the physical processes behind the time variance. There is also a need to make the recording method more accurate and repeatable; a need to make the equipment less expensive and more transportable to make it more reliable and safer to operate; and, further, to make an instrument that will operate in the normal ambient illumination conditions of a clinical setting.
Traditionally, special meanings have been ascribed, and marginal scientific theories put forth, to explain the shapes and even the colors that are present in Kirlian images. And, it has been claimed that these images are a visible manifestation of "auras" that are visible only to certain specially-gifted people. This invention begins working from the assumption that, (given present science and technology), no useful information will be found in the spatial gradations of density in Kirlian film images. It is also assumed, that information extracted from the images recorded by Ramesh Chouhan, using the SINGLE POINT percent transmission method, can be collected equally well by measurement of total illumination from the discharge surrounding a defined AREA of skin. Further, it is also assumed, for a given patient at least, that total charge transferred in breakdown-mediated events is proportional to the integrated value of the associated illumination.
The scientifically accurate view is taken that the illumination producing discharge process occurs as follows: 1) a dielectric plate is polarized by an adjacent polarizing conductor at high electrical potential, 2) the resultant induced surface charge on the far side of the plate will in turn create a potential in that vicinity which is higher than it would otherwise be in a free space condition (no dielectric), 3) skin or some other conductor, where it contacts the dielectric, will supply mobile charge (because it's a conductor), to neutralize the induced surface charge, 4) where the dielectric is NOT contacted, a high potential difference will exist between the skin and the surface of the dielectric, 5) as the potential of the polarizing plate increases, the potential difference between dielectric and skin will increase to the point where electrical breakdown of the intervening gas will occur and charge will be transferred between the skin and dielectric surface, 6) but, because the surface of the dielectric is not a conductor, this breakdown process does not occur all at once, but small area by small area of dielectric is neutralized via breakdown. When the polarizer plate's polarity is reversed, a similar process occurs, but the charge transfer direction is reversed. Polarizer voltage rises to just beyond the breakdown level, so it must be emphasized that the continued breakdown process is dependent upon alternation of the high voltage polarity; multiple high voltage pulses of the same polarity will have little effect after the first breakdown mediated transfer. Once charge has moved, there won't be quite enough potential difference between the skin and any location on the dielectric to start a breakdown in the reverse direction when polarizer voltage drops to zero. This sequence of limited tiny charge transfers, which is qualitatively different than an arc discharge in lightening, for example, makes the process safe from a medical standpoint.
This patent describes the construction of devices that apply basic science and that exploit the stated assumptions. The devices described are new and significant departures from the existing state of the art, such as it is.